Riding the client bias roller coaster is exhausting. Read on for a summary on how to walk clients out of bias, and download the full article at: How to Fix Client Bias
Why Clients Get Stuck in Bias
Daniel Gilbert, Ph.D., a leading behavioral psychologist, has spent 30 years studying how biases impact decision making. In short, he highlights four persistent problems:
1. We Can’t See the Future
The human brain is not good at imagining the future. As a result, the needs of our future self are not pressing. As Stanford psychologist Hal Hershfield puts it “One of the reasons people fail to make good choices is because they feel a sense of emotional disconnect from their future selves”
2. We Think Money Buys Happiness
Although research consistently shows money does not buy happiness, we act like it does. As a result, when clients are talking about their money, they’re likely to focus on their purchasing power as the key to satisfaction, even if that’s a fallacy.
3. We’re Myopic
When bad things happen, people are overwhelmed with negative feelings. In that moment, we assume life will never improve. It’s a normal response, because we don’t remember past cycles of despair and restoration.
4. We Give Up
Despite repeated experiences of recovery, people discount strategies that worked before because today is not exactly the same as past events. This is why clients feel completely derailed, again.
How to Help Clients Out of Bias
Undoubtedly, you’ve worked hard to teach clients they’re resilient. For clients who succumb to the bias roller coaster, be patient. It’s normal, and they need your help. Here’s how to help them:
1. Help Them Calm Down
First, clients need to calm down. You will not be able to guide them out of bias while they’re controlled by their emotions. You’ve done this before, do it again. For more, review my four steps to calm anxious clients at: How to Calm Clients
2. Walk Down Memory Lane
As clients calm down, review relevant past experiences. Ask questions that recall each emotional roller coaster. The purpose is to have clients remind themselves how bad they felt before, and then recall the effective strategies, and recovery that followed.
This helps clients remember their emotional resilience. Be sure to gently reinforce how each situation felt unique, and how your work together led them to recovery.
The following open-ended questions will guide them:
- Remember that first crisis? How did you feel then?
- What were you tempted to do at that time?
- What were the strategies we put in place?
- What happened over time?
- Reflecting back, what did you learn from that experience?
Telling their own story is a powerful way to remind clients that each crisis was followed by a recovery. For clients who rejected your advice, reflecting on past mistakes will motivate them to avoid the error this time. For those who did stay the course, it will be a vivid reminder to do so again.
When you evoke past lessons learned, the clients will convince themselves that reacting in a panic is both unnecessary, and unproductive. Ideally, they will shift from panic to perseverance. Once they’ve convinced themselves, you can pivot to future thinking.
For more details and to help your clients when the next “crisis” hits, download the full article at: How to Fix Client Bias
Better still, Contact Me and we’ll discuss your specific situation.
